Consulting

Working upstream where direction is set

Many organisations today are deeply committed to positive change — yet find themselves constrained by systems that continue to produce unintended consequences. Despite good intentions, sophisticated data, and dedicated teams, efforts often stall, conflict, or generate new problems elsewhere.

My consulting work focuses on helping organisations understand why this happens — and where meaningful leverage actually lies.

Rather than starting with solutions, I work upstream: at the level of assumptions, beliefs, incentives, and system design that quietly shape outcomes long before decisions are made.

What I help organisations with

My work is most useful when challenges are:

Persistent rather than episodic
Systemic rather than technical
Directional rather than operational

I typically support organisations seeking to:

Reframe complex problems that resist conventional solutions
Understand why existing strategies underperform despite strong execution
Identify structural drivers that sit beneath symptoms
Align values, metrics, and incentives more coherently
Navigate transitions without reproducing old patterns in new forms

This work is particularly relevant in contexts where ecological, social, and economic concerns intersect — and where trade-offs can no longer be avoided.

How I work

My approach combines systems analysis with philosophical inquiry, grounded in real-world constraints.

In practice, this means:

Mapping how systems behave over time, including feedback loops and lock-ins
Surfacing the assumptions embedded in policies, metrics, and narratives
Clarifying what organisations are implicitly optimising for — whether intentionally or not
Creating shared language around complexity, limits, and responsibility
Supporting leadership teams in making more coherent, long-horizon decisions

The aim is not to prescribe answers, but to improve the quality of thinking that decisions are based on.

Typical forms of engagement

Engagements are tailored, but often include:

Strategic framing workshops
Helping teams step back from symptoms and see the larger system they are operating within.
Systems diagnosis and advisory
Identifying structural drivers that undermine stated goals or generate recurring problems.
Leadership and board-level conversations
Supporting decision-makers in navigating complexity, uncertainty, and ethical trade-offs.
Narrative and orientation work
Clarifying how organisational stories, metrics, and priorities shape behaviour internally and externally.

This work can be short and catalytic, or ongoing and embedded, depending on context.

Who this work is for

My consulting is best suited to:

Think tanks and research institutes
Foundations and philanthropic organisations
NGOs and mission-driven organisations
Leadership teams grappling with long-term transition
Institutions working at the intersection of policy, economics, and ecology

It is less suited to contexts seeking quick fixes, technical optimisation, or pre-defined solutions.

What this work is not

To avoid misunderstanding, this work is not:

Management consulting in the conventional sense
A toolkit or methodology to be rolled out
Advocacy for a single ideological position
A promise of certainty in complex systems

It is an invitation to work more honestly with complexity — and to act with greater coherence as a result.

Why organisations seek this perspective

Organisations often reach out when they sense that:

The language they are using no longer describes reality
The metrics guiding decisions feel misaligned with purpose
Solutions feel incremental while problems feel structural
Action is accelerating without clarity about direction

In these moments, stepping back is not avoidance — it is responsible leadership.

Starting a conversation

If you believe your organisation is grappling with challenges that are structural rather than superficial, I’m open to exploratory conversations.

These are not sales calls.
They are opportunities to clarify whether this perspective is useful — for both sides.

Contact:
Michael Chèze
mcheze@icloud.com

CONSULTING